Discourse Analysis: discussions, debates, resources

I prefer having a bit of diversity among study resources, hence, I searched for some podcasts on discourse analysis. Two particularly useful podcasts have been made available on the Podbean channel ‘discourse and pragmatics, by enrodney where you find a lecture on Mediated Discourse Analysis and another one on The Ethnography of Speaking .

The Speech Accent Archive is a great research tool – but also useful for actors who want to learn a particular accent (certainly not mutually exclusive…and certainly recommended for Daniel Day-Lewis who adopted an Austrian rather than an Italian accent for Nine (2009) which makes him sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Transcription symbols have been provided by John W Du Bois, University of California Santa Barbara in a file that compares symbols and their function and meaning in terms of transcription categories.

Conversation analysis by Charles Antaki, Loughborough University, – in particular lectures 3, 4 and 5 offer valuable summaries of applied key concepts such as adjacency pairs, preferreds and dispreferreds as well as turn-takes .

Nick Llewellyn, University of Warwick, has made interesting and useful tutorial available, the material focuses on transcription of video footage .

Emanuel Schegloff, University of California LA, illustrates a number of detailed talk-in-action sequences which feature overlapping talk, micropauses and aspirations as well as intonations – all transcripts are made available as audio, this is a major plus, especially for those unfamiliar with a specific accent.

The Open University, UK, D843 course forum (i.e. communal area shared by system users) is a bit hard to find as the post-graduate course on discourse analysis does not provide a tutor-moderated forum (as common) but only a group run by students. This kind of forum is not linked to the Studenthome where students could find it easily but is embedded on a deeper level. Here is the chain of clicks required to navigate through:

Option 1:
Go to Open University studenthome > Links > OU Mailbox and discussion forums server
> Directory > search for OUSA D843 – create mail to
Option2:
Go to Open University studenthome > Links > OU Mailbox and discussion forums server > OU Student Association > OUSA signpost – D843

I recommend making the effort as there are comprehensive archives dating back to 2007, they contain discussions and resources – I am sure this will also be an efficient tool in the exam preparation. We recently discussed the meaning of reality as constructed within discourse as well as what constitutes relativism in DA.

Then there was discussion around correct referencing in Harvard style – I shared my favourite online Referencing Guide because the PDF is comprehensive and very well structured.

With regard to relativism I had come across Mette Haagen’s study: Indian Organ Trade; From the Perspective of Weak Cultural Relativism (2005) which uses discourse analysis in order to investigate the impact discourses of human rights and inequality poverty have on the understanding of the existence of the Indian organ trade. It is a fascinating read and a significant topic – explored over 30 pages.

Semiotics revisited: Absolut

I came across this presentation which applies the key concepts of semiotics to the Absolut Vodka advertising campaign. It’s a very helpful and entertaining illustration of the terms sign, signifier, signified as well as the underlying discourse in a specific context – made available by Rashmi Athlekar on Slideshare – as embedded below. The more comprehensive guide by visual semiotician David Chandler is still one of my favourite sites, the glossary is quite extensive and delivers a more in-depth approach to semiotic studies.

Research Design: methodology in question

One of the blogs I follow on a regular basis is Jeffrey Keefer’s Silence and Voice which is currently concerned with some issues related to research design and formulating of research questions in the wider context of auto-ethnography as methodology and identity construction as the subject of interest. Recent posts I found very interesting and commented on are the one on broader research design questions and the one on auto-ethnography and reflexivity which are worthwhile having a think over – they provide very good ground for some reflection on dilemmas and politics entailed in the underlying epistemological questions of research-related decision-making.

I am fascinated by the way crowd-sourcing can work in academic blogging, it’s a great way of engaging broader audiences and gaining some insights from outside immediate areas. I like and do value the fact that academic bloggers, busy with studies and work, research and other things, take the time and effort to reflect publicly online, open up to questions and critiques – and respond to comments and ideas. Personally, I enjoy the challenge to think about issues and see whether I can contribute some ideas and to what extent I need to improve on gaps and communication of insights.

Jeffrey’s research made me recall some podcasts featuring Stuart Hall et al. debating questions related to identity construction. They form part of the Open University’s post-graduate course D853 Identity in Question which I studied in 2008 – the interviews cover Lacanian Theory, Language Approach, subjectivity and legal definitions of personhood as well as some comments on Michel Foucault’s genealogical perspective. They last 2 to 9 minutes and deliver some great food for thought. I also came across James Schirmer’s paper on Scribd which I recommend as thought-provoking read in this context The Personal as Public: Identity Construction/Fragmentation Online

View this document on Scribd

Don’t miss: sustainability and IR11 – call for papers

Internet Research 11.0 – Sustainability, Participation, Action

The 11th Annual International and Interdisciplinary Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)

October 21-23, 2010 University of Gothenburg/Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

The challenge of this conference is to find multiple avenues for participation and action towards a sustainable future. In a society increasingly aware of social and ecological imbalance, many people now see information and communication technologies as key technologies for solving problems associated with an unsustainable future. However, while information technology may solve some problems, it can magnify others. As pointed out by world forums such as the United Nations and the European Commission, use of ICTs contributes to the unsustainable consumption of energy and resources. Similarly, unequal access and exploitative practices remind us that IT is not a utopian answer to complex social problems. A sustainable future is not only about greening processes and products at any cost, but also entails social responsibility, cultural protection and economic growth. Therefore the conference has a multi-dimensional focus, where the Internet is seen as a possible liberating, empowering and greening tool.

The conference will focus on how the Internet can function as a conduit for the development of greater global equality and understanding, a training ground for participation in debates and cross-cultural projects and a tool for mutual action; in short a technology of empowerment. The flip-side of the internet as a tool for empowerment is the issue of exploitation. Exploitation of resources and people is what has led to the current crisis, and issues of exploitation are highly relevant online, from abuse of the commons to censorship, fraud and loss of privacy and the protection of the rights of the individual.

Sustainability, Participation, Action invites scholars to consider issues concerning empowerment and/or exploitation in relation to the Internet. We ask scholars to specifically consider issues concerning integrity, knowledge production, and ethics in relation to the Internet and sustainable development. How do we, as Internet researchers, regard our work in relation to the unsustainable current situation and the possibilities of a sustainable future? How far can we take the Internet, and with it, people, individuals, groups and societies in order to create an arena for participation and action, all key elements in imagining a sustainable future? How can we apply previous knowledge to serve future solutions?

To this end, we call for papers, panel proposals, and presentations from any discipline, methodology, and community, and from conjunctions of multiple disciplines, methodologies and academic communities that address the conference themes, including papers that intersect and/or interconnect the following:

• Internet and an equal and balanced society
• Internet as an arena for participation
• Internet as a tool and arena for action
• Internet and an informed knowledge society
• Internet and a green society
• Internet and e‐commerce, dematerialization and transportation
• Internet and security, integrity and surveillance
• Internet and a healthy society
• Internet as an arena for cultural expressions, and source of a culture of its own.

Sessions at the conference will be established that specifically address the conference themes, and we welcome innovative, exciting, and unexpected takes on those themes. We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, political, legal, aesthetic, economic, and/or philosophical aspects of the Internet beyond the conference themes. In all cases, we welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary submissions as well as international collaborations from both AoIR and non‐AoIR members.

SUBMISSIONS
We seek proposals for several different kinds of contributions. We welcome proposals for traditional academic conference PAPERS and we also welcome proposals for ROUNDTABLE SESSIONS that will focus on discussion and interaction among conference delegates, as well as organized PANEL PROPOSALS that present a coherent group of papers on a single theme.

DEADLINES
Call for Papers Released: 24 November 2009
Submissions Due: 21 February 2010
Notification: 21 April 2010
Full papers due: 21 August 2010

Further details on http://aoir.org/

Sustainability is becoming an ever broader notion, and rightly so, I think. In line with this week’s United Nation Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen here also the link to CNN’s debate on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/cop15 and the leaked document available on Scribd, also known as Danish Text, that caused some stir http://www.scribd.com/doc/23859562/copenhagen-danish-text. (The Adoption of the Copenhagen Agreement Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Related sites: Copenhagen Climate Council and the Cop15 conference site which allows you to forward your message.

Tackfilm killed the hero

It was a short-lived celebrity status Tackfilm had bestowed me. In the early hours of Sunday morning I noticed Tackfilm had suffered and subsequently resorted to radical measures:

Thank you for visiting our International Hero Movie Application! Unfortunately, we’ve been forced to close this site for non-Swedish users due to the huge amount of visitors.

It seems, united we crashed it. United we mourn the short-lived existence of virtual heroes we were. Or perhaps we just flock to the next interactive video…supposed we find another one that promises just as much fun as Tackfilm had managed to give us.

Of course, Tackfilm is still available on its Swedish domain Tackfilm.se. Use Google Translate in case you can’t make sense of the Swedish instructions. If you use Google Chrome you will be able to access the site by help of a new incognito window, in case your non-Swedish IP address excludes you.

Yesterday, I had also trouble accessing Stopp.se’s website, the producers behind Tackfilm. More details on them in my previous post about Tackfilm.

Discourse analysis: key concepts Wordle

Discourse Analysis – key concepts and aspects in a Wordle, see below.

References
BBC interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, 1995 (transcript)
Garfinkel, Harold
Goffman, Erving
Sheffield Hallam University, UK: list of resources
Wetherell, Margaret

My DA image presentation by Wordle.net. Follow this link to print my DA Wordle or send it to a PDF maker. If you require a screenreader version please email me at bbohlinger [at] googlemail [dot] com and I will forward an RTF or text only in an email to you.

discourse analysis: key concepts and aspects in a Wordle

Google Wave invites for you

The first 8 invites have gone, another 10 are available for those who email me at
bbohlinger [at ] googlemail [dot] com. Just get in touch.

My review of 14 November is available within my blog: My post on Google Wave’s potential.

It focuses on qualitative aspects of my own experience with Wave. Google have conducted a quantitative study and published their findings in a post highlighting statistics on what users like and dislike.

I strongly recommend to use Google Chrome which is a lot faster than Internet Explorer (add-in) or Firefox – in particular in larger Waves. Google Chrome works well even on mobile broadband, so worthwhile trying if you haven’t downloaded it yet.

If you are interested in more sophisticated waves for business or education and other projects, check this detailed blogpost that features a number of helpful screenshots: Lifehacker’s Google Wave for projects article.

Discourse Analysis: study material, references

I have received online access to all material for Discourse Analysis (key theoretical, philosophical, and methodological debates), the Open University’s post-graduate course in the Social Sciences programme. It’s a 16 week course at 30 credit points and will be my second last course towards the MA degree, with 3 assignments to be submitted electronically and an exam in April 2010. All material has been provided right at the start of the course in PDFs – which can be edited by help of mark-up. Below the links to the study material on Amazon (look inside feature) and material from previous years (PDFs are not editable) which vary only in terms of dates from the current presentation.

• Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. and Yates, S.J. (eds) (2001) Discourse Theory and
  Practice: A Reader. London: Sage in association with The Open University.
  Discourse Theory (Reader) on Amazon (search inside)
  This reader contains a collection of articles by Stuart Hall, Erving Goffman, Nikolas Rose et al.
• Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. and Yates, S.J. (eds) (2001) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis, London: Sage in association with The Open University.
  Discourse Data (Workbook) on Amazon (search inside)
• Study Guide (PDF, opens in new window) which outlines the learning outcomes and the teaching strategy
• Study Calendar of 2007, PDF opens in new window.

There is also a specimen exam paper delivered online but not made accessible to the public by the Open University, further a number of exam papers from previous years available on the OUSA Online Store for purchase. Moreover, preparation notes, a guide for submitting electronic assignments (time of submission will change in December from 12am to 12noon) and the assignment booklet itself.

Further required readings:

• Fairclough, N. and Wodak, R. (1997) ‘Critical discourse analysis’ in van Dijk, Teun A. (ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction, vol. 2, London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage, pp. 258–84.
• Locke, A. and Edwards, D. (2003) ‘Bill and Monica: memory, emotion and normativity in Clinton’s Grand Jury testimony’, British Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 42, part 2, pp. 239–56.
• Pomerantz, A. and Fehr, B.J. (1997) ‘Conversation analysis: an approach to the study of social action as sense making practices’ in van Dijk, Teun A. (ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction,vol.2, London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage Publications, pp. 64–91.
• Potter, J. (2005) ‘Making psychology relevant’, Discourse and Society, vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 739–47.
• van Dijk, Teun A. (1992) ‘Discourse and the denial of racism’, Discourse and Society, vol. 3, no.1, pp. 87–118

Tackfilm Sweden features: You, the Hero

Staring in a Swedish film, takes less than 5 minutes and makes you look like a global hero in a professionally made short film. Tackfilm – tack means thank you in Swedish – is thanking Swedish citizens for paying their broadcasting fees. Subtitled and smart (upload your own pic, turn off sound and run the faster version if on slow connection) it’s a toy that can potentially teach more than clever marketing.

It conveys a sense of how easy it is making someone look pretty good – in this case it’s me who’s the hero: Tackfilm features Britta – in no less than 8 (!) appearances…stunning, almost convinced myself of being Sweden’s hero ;)

flickr’s seductive power

I have recently become a ‘flickr pro’ member and started using groups more meaningfully. It is a social networking site that taps into my unconscious, I feel. Frequently I am surprised to see my own connotations that spring up when presented with a new image uploaded by one of my contacts.

I love the daily flickr newsletter and those previews, the mix of them, 5 in a line maximum per contact, every day a visual treat. They trigger unknown associations in me. I click on the one that makes me most curious when I don’t have much time to explore all of them.

You never know, sometimes it’s light and shadows, details in the background, personal tags that add another layer of meaning, a comment by another viewer that is moving. It’s so intense the dynamic, like being pulled into a narrative that resembles a film. A few images tell a story but the story differs from what the person saw who took the shot which also differs from the real story. Interpretation of the interpretation.

Today, TooSix uploaded a simple neonsign saying Kreuzberg – the part in Berlin where I spent nearly 7 years – it made me do what expected least: a German poem-style memory unfolded, I typed without really thinking. I hadn’t been aware this was still living inside me. So fresh. Nothing’s ever lost. Nice. Grateful for the inspiration, thanks TooSix.

Gute alte Zeiten. Sehnsucht. Ratten. Strassenkehrer. Doner Kebap. Best in town. Politische Debatten nach 2 morgens. Ach.
Ein Neon Schild. Nicht mehr. Nicht weniger.

recruitment and graduate internet user skills

This week I overheard a discussion between a few financial professionals. They threw in their collective knowledge about sushi and Aberdeen, Scotland. Apparently there are no sushi bars in Aberdeen and those folks up in the very North East of our island are poor souls who have to travel down to London in order to get a bite of cold fish and rice. While they argued back and forth I googled it – turns out there are 7 sushi restaurants listed in Aberdeen. I had suspected no less but it left me puzzled that those folks with iPhones and internet access right in front of them rather resorted to making themselves look less than smart than simply checking it first and then telling others.

The same applies to recruitment processes I learned the other day. Understanding what sort of personality you are about to recruit is still based on relatively old-fashioned conversations, going through CV (resume, Lebenslauf) data, checking references – all a bit slow and ignorant of the possibilities we could harness. Senior executives in charge of making final decisions about recruitment of graduates still believe you need to sign up for Twitter in order to ‘read it’. There is a profound lack of skills in making use of the considerable amount of data many graduates provide on the net.

Accessible to anyone involved in the recruitment process and able to pull the strands together, it won’t need to be the images of drunk nights out on Facebook that are compromising. That might be the worst case scenario only. Someone briefing decision-makers would go and search for patterns in order to see whether the applicant may fit in beyond the bare facts and if so, to what degree. Questions that matter most when recruiting staff, which are not easily assessed in personal conversations, might be:

• What sort of moods does the applicant reveal? Stable? Erratic?
• What kind of friends or conversational partners does the applicant engage with? What’s the tone of these conversations? Any consumer forums or communities that show technical or social skills?
• Any skills that match the CV or are perhaps not even mentioned – check Youtube, Flickr etc.
• Does the applicant appear to ignore copyrights or infringe others’ rights?

Internet usage skills are complex and reveal a lot more about a person than many keep thinking. While typical assessment practices provide nothing more than a snapshot of an applicant on a day of all effort being made to look good, the internet research will provide a long-term profile that says a lot more about potential employees with regard to:

• team working including group blogging and
• feedback skills including taking in and learning from criticism
• broader communication skills and
• general networking, dealing with ’spam contacts’ as well as
• digital media ethics

That is potentially a lot more and a lot more of a holistic picture than we could ever be able to find out in conventional recruitment talks. Smart and skilled applicants will make sure they have privacy settings in place for personal conversations that will not be haunting them in these kind of situations. It’s a question of being in command of the social media you are using rather than being controlled by technology in non-desired ways. Employers and applicants – as well as old media – frequently seem to hold less differentiated views on this.

The very same applies to the applicant perspective, they are free – and should make use of it – to check their future employer and senior staff’s profiles. If there is no online identity searchable, not even a few hits that bring up names in relation to conferences or affiliations to professional bodies, this conveys an equally strong message.

After all, what we want, is making informed decisions. It’s not about sneaking into people’s personal lives and moralising about life styles as some may argue, rather, it is about finding suitable matches and making sure you won’t need to waste a few months in real [business] life together before the mismatch becomes all too evident.

In this sense, Eszter Hargittai’s ‘The Role of Expertise in Navigating Links of Influence’ is a great read. The essay is available as part of The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age (2008) by editors Joseph Turow and Lokman Tsui.

challenges, passion – and Higher Education

Alone in walled cyberspace: I was working on a collaborative project today and made some interesting observations. The university forum was quiet, as so often now. We are six groups of 10 students each, each group works with an allocated associated lecturer. They could potentially get discussions going but debate has decreased to a degree where 3-5 students per week at best contribute, it’s rather monologues than debates. The current project is a group presentation based on notions of definition of professionalism, excellence, best practices and related illustrating material in educational contexts. It’s fairly straightforward and I have already selected my case studies, summarised the key points which I think justify calling them excellent and posted that. So I can concentrate on a paper due next week for the course on accessibility.

Wiki and Moodle: We use a Wiki within the Moodle environment. Even though Moodle is open source, the technology is rather hindering than facilitating efficient and enjoyable communication and collaboration. The course is 100% online, i.e. no printed material, no audio or video conferences. A huge minus, it means you don’t talk to any student or lecturer over the course of five months, you won’t see them if they opt for those object-centred avatars, the least personal thing anyone could possibly come up with.

Online collaboration: Based on these premises, the collaboration is mediocre, we try, of course, to hit the deadline, and produce something that will pass. But we depend on each other (which would be a lot more fascinating to study…) and what happened over the past few days was quite amusing. People were reminded to show up in the forum and collaborate on the project as this is a must-do activity – one of the many that are not mentioned in the course description when students sign up for splashing out a four-digit amount on this course just to end up being frustrated but end up not daring to express it.

Power and Panopticon: The forums could be linked together rather than running individual walled gardens where a group of no more than ten students watched by their lecturer makes for a spirit of a Foucauldian panopticon because lecturers neither engage in debates (other than ‘oh, that’s a good point’) nor do they share conference announcements, their own publications or anything that I think would be normal to do in an online course at post-graduate level. I found myself posting conference announcement until I noticed that all lecturers and course authors attend plenty of conferences but remain utterly shy when it comes to sharing. No papers, no ideas beyond the course content, no events. Make your own way if you want to be one of us.

Sharing practices 1.0: Now, people emailed the lecturer asking to get their email address distributed. The Open University does not support student contact lists we were told, which means you have to email the lecturer and ask them explicitly to email that to other students. Once they have done that students get an email with one email address of a fellow student addressed to an undisclosed recipient list. Now to me that is so web 1.0 and so control-freakish that I couldn’t help but post my email address straight into the course Wiki – which is, you guessed it, behind walls, password-secured, of course.

Dependent learners: I found the Wiki work so far not exactly inspiring, you get an impression there are students who throw into it whatever they can think of – or the opposite, nothing at all. We are asked to collaborate with regard to cleaning up etc but it feels a bit like reinventing the wheel – there are publicly accessible wikis in the net, so why not having a look and getting inspired? Oh, self-directed learning, critical and independent thinking and questioning minds, are we ready for them or shall we rather re-produce the well-tried docile bodies and minds that come in so handy in consumerist societies that just suffered a major blow to the unquestioning buy-now, let the next-generation-pay attitude? It’s so convenient to not being questioned, and to not engage with some of those tireless students who are such a nuisance…

The administrator-lecturer:The whole course would greatly benefit from more critical thinking, concerted action and a much less administrative attitude of lecturers who see their role obviously in copy and pasting individual snippets of the course guide following the pattern ‘activity 2.4 – please discuss…’. It’s all asynchronous and students tend to ramble away, everyone under considerable time pressure due to all those exercises that focus on rhetoric rather than substance. So far I have been missing theoretical frameworks that required a bit of work and dare I say it? Thinking, just thinking through ideas, not one single concept that was hard to grasp.

Inter-disciplinarity? No thanks: Boring, over-priced and somewhat hysteric with all its pieces of 300 or 500 words of reflective practice. This course does not allow us to reflect on the institutional agenda, the politics of academia or the self-centred assessment obsession we are presented with. Nor do lecturer or authors make any references to auto-ethnography, auto-biography or reflexivity. I was told, it’s another discipline and hence we won’t discuss it, so no chance to get the course anywhere near inter-disciplinary approaches or harness the power of collective student knowledge in academic crowd-sourcing style.

Off the record – student feedback: In 1:1 conversations behind other walled gardens I get to hear that this course is a ‘raw deal’, that the references we are presented with are predominantly freely accessible government reports, papers produced by academics who don’t work with the Open University or other material that has been licensed under a Creative Commons License and was intended for non-profit purposes – but who dares to cry wolf when they have spent a considerable amount of money on degree courses they try to do to get on with careers that are not exactly exciting? Clearly, it takes another kind of student to get a bit of protest than the ones the Open University usually attracts and manages well to keep as far apart as possible – networking outcomes are incredibly poor at the Open University, any conference or workshop will provide a better opportunity. In this way, though, any student rebels remain under control, I haven’t seen anything remotely resembling what I witnessed on a regular basis in Berlin’s universities – where students do have to pay at worst a minor fraction of what we are being charged here – but still seem to have fierce critical thinking for breakfast and never get tired pointing out what’s wrong with ‘the system’.

Not understanding social media practices: Technology, after all, is not a panacea. To me it seems, some academics discovered social media as cash-generating holy grail, so they came up with online courses that require students to do a lot of administrative work that course teams used to do in the past. Lecturers have started blogging, some of them explored the liberating effects of reflecting over compromising personal material they declare they don’t want to share in the student forums but you will find them on Google within a minute. Others don’t trust any applications which are freeware or shareware or anything that requires interaction between peers, no matter where you are in the hierarchies in real life. I feel like attempting to educate educators who lack experience in social media and think that a bit of blogging in pseudo-anonymous style and a few friends on facebook are all that’s to be known about social media. Elearning itself is so overrated and yet so misunderstood and under-harnessed in this course that I wonder what comes next. The exciting aspects of studies based on books and papers? The unquestioned technological determinism that has been creeping into the study material compiled by people who barely know anything about building networks and resolving conflicts or getting into such in social networks is shocking. What qualifies these people to teach us in this top-down manner (in particular as they request us to provide evidence even in cases when we argue we haven’t made any personal or professional progress)? Why should I be content with this after experiencing experts in the field sharing on Twitter and in blogs in a constant stream of enthusiasm? Why should I trust experts in online edcuation when they do not even have a sound online identity (or none at all)?

Before we hyped elearning: Non-online courses at the Open University were provided as heavy packs of audio, video and paper material (one of them delivered numerous interviews with Stuart Hall -perhaps I need to let the Open University know that these courses were the ones which educated me towards the demanding student I am nowadays, that was at half the fee I pay now and just 4 years ago). Now, this is gone, though. Whenever my internet connection is down, I am lost. The entire material is provided as html sites, lots of links, so please check them and if you intend to highlight or work with the material offline, happy copy and pasting. Whenever the student server is down, the same applies.

Harnessing the limitations: Over the past 11 weeks or so I have been through a number of angry moments, and I wasn’t shy in expressing my frustration. The aspect that infuriates me most is the lack of challenging course work, the total obsession with assessment and the massive lack of flexibility. This is new, in previous courses (under-graduate and post-graduate) the Open University provided enough room for personal planning around other commitments – after all that’s why busy people study there. Now it’s every week another 3-5 activities we’ve got to do. Plus essays and projects. Write 500 words on this or that, post it on your blog (and mess up your online identity) and debate in the forum – where noone will respond to what you say – beyond oh yes, good point – because people are busy ticking all the boxes of this ‘new’ micro-management teaching style. Flow, the kind of immersed happiness that comes with getting deeply into studies, does not kick in. I assume, that is what I miss most and that’s why I am angry. I feel betrayed for the best that learning has to offer.

Flows of learning: In all my disappointment (there are more aspects that make you laugh out loud in disbelief, check my Twitter channel) I noticed I have been fuelled with – supposedly – negative energy and a lack of inspiring and driven debate that poured right into my spinning activities. We spinners in London’s Soho Gym Camden are blessed with a remarkable individual. I have come from weak to outstanding (I get to hear) over the past 10 months and keep having amusing conversations about personal development and informal learning – unexpected, unplanned, all down to someone who is outstanding in his teaching, motivational and observational skills. Our instructor will not break a spinner, but he will yell at us in complete passion ‘fly! fly!’ and we will. He will observe your progress and won’t push you beyond your personal maximum limit but he will get you very close. That’s a rare skill, too many lecturers either don’t challenge you or too much or only in all the wrong aspects.

Informal learning: I have learned an enormous amount from these spinning classes that have made me see skills I possess but never thought I would have. I have became a lot braver, trusting, confident in the unknown – I have started exploring the mental space that is between getting on that bike and the 5th minute after getting the body into a different mode. I develop ideas in a non-intellectual way when I work through the 70th minute on a Sunday morning, the body in ecstatic sweatiness, the mind sharp and ready to tackle whatever may come. I have learned to be in a state of very happy meditation, a state of deep fulfilment, generated by nothing but physical work and focus, focus, focus. Don’t let go! The mantra that wipes out any doubt in the manipulating power an instructor can have over you. Don’t let go! – the same few words Rose got to hear from Jack on the Titanic. You know how far she got after he drowned in the icy sea…(that’s another story though).

Transferable social skills: I have learned to trust an instructor who’s got the power to make or break (and I wasn’t aware of this before) by manipulating us. I have also learned that a good and passionate teacher is not shy of sharing what they do learn from us learners. And they do. In fact they may even discover things in learner they envy as they haven’t had that experience yet. It’s been a rewarding and fantastic journey that has got me to look at learning and teaching even more from a sharing and equality angle. I am less than ever before willing to buy into the assessment-driven micro-management teaching I experience in my university.

Producing docile minds versus the greed for a challenge: Studies that lack enthusiasm and the kind of inspired atmosphere that leaves people happily exhausted are something we all should learn to criticise a lot harsher. Too many have been educated to be docile, to not question the power and hierarchy, the funding politics and institutional agendas embedded in learning practices that protesting for harder student work and more challenges do not seem to come naturally to many students – and I mean qualitative harder studies, not just a mind-numbing quantity of easily assessable tasks. I find this sad, even more so ever since I have been joining these spinning classes which are always fully booked and transform people over an hour into happily exhausted perma-grinners, excited in the experience and keen on coming back and progressing. Fly, fly!

using Google Wave: lots of potential

I got an invite to Google Wave some time back and at the moment about half of my 11 contacts in Wave have engaged in some online collaboration. This was predominantly in 1:1 conversation, so very similar to emailing at this point.

One major exception, though. A wave that started on 6th November, includes in this hour 125 -invited- users (basically by friend’s snow-balling), and discusses the simple question whether Wave will become a success. So, it’s Yes, No or Maybe. Nearly 80 messages and comments have been generated and to me it’s been an excellent way to explore the limited options a little further. Wave Preview is restricted with respect to add- ins and gadgets. Here is a list of Google Wave extensions and Google Wave Robots that we are supposed to be able to use sometime soon (when exactly is still unclear).

Some users within this Wave declared they were getting impatient, this was the main argument people made who thought Wave is not going to be a success. However, this specific wave is managed (so people stay on the topic) and contains some gadgets. New comments are highlighted, in order to trace back when a wave was started and what was said by whom there is a playback menu, which also allows to toggle between frames and lists a full list of participants of a wave.

So far I find it very interesting to see how much speculation there is and how much misconception – this extends to those users who haven’t engaged in the managed wave. It seems the lack of communication provided by Google within Wave feeds into pessimism and the lack of time or curiosity to explore options and play equally nurtures the failure some see on the horizon. Those who are not familiar with editing wikis and collaborating in semi-private online spaces argue they want more privacy and control, others claims it’s boring and some said they would only log in to see whether someone had said something to them (which, I admit, made me instantly think about their real life relationships…).

Wave raises interesting questions as to power and control, censorship and regulation – on the micro-level of the individual user. Some seem to be very comfortable talking to anyone who has posted something worth commenting on. Others remain observers – at least they are still listed as such. Users can unfollow any wave, just like in Twitter. There is an option that allows users to tag a wave, so it’s collective tagging which is fun – and can help looking at discussions from a different angle, depending on the users’ expertise and professional background. Now there is also an option to up-and download a wave or copy it to another wave. The latter option made me wonder whether all comments are recognised by users as not copyrighted. Basically, Wave operates as password-protected area but I doubt every user holds the same authorship ethos – attribution may become an issue.

Wave is fast and operates well in Google Chrome but it seems to cause problems in other browsers. So far it has delivered it key promise: to provide the main features of Twitter, Facebook and Wikis, with a few more options and gadgets, this could become my favourite tool of discussion, in particular in combination with Google Docs.

Workshop: Using Creative Methods in Social Research, Dec 2009

This week, I saw David Gauntlett ’s status update on Facebook linking to the announcement of a 2-day Course on the Use of Creative Methods in Social Research, to be held on 10th and 11th December 2009 at City University in London, supported by the ESRC.

There is a low fee for post-graduate students and a good chance this will turn into a rather interdisciplinary event. I have attended a few workshops and conferences held or organised by David and they have all been not just very valuable but also great fun – so highly recommended to email the form and secure a place, all further details are here.